Drive a Ferrari - Ferrari Driving Experience reviews
Reviews
of what it is like to drive a Ferrari
on a Ferrari driving experience day. Find out what real people
make of driving a Ferrari
 Getting
to drive a Ferrari is perhaps the top of many car enthusiasts
lists of things to do. Most will never get to own a Ferrari
but due to the different driving experiences we can nearly
all now have the chance to get behind the wheel and drive
a Ferrari at least.
We
have written driving experience reviews where Ferraris have
been driven as part of other driving experience days but not
on a day dedicated to just a Ferrari so we have decided to
re-write just about the Ferrari driving experiences again
so they are here.
Prestwold
Hall Supercar driving experience
 Now
the Prestwold Hall driving experience day was a bit special
as we were getting to drive a number of different cars and
so the time behind the wheel to drive the Ferrari was limited
to just a few laps. There were 2 difefrent Ferraris there
that day, one was a Ferrari 360
and the other a red Ferrari 550. Now the Ferrari 360 has 400bhp
and the Ferrari 550 had 485 horses in the engine to push it
along, now despite knowing that both cars are absolutely rapid
and the fact that I wouldn't actually get to completely use
ever bit of horsepower under the bonnet I still wanted to
be in the Ferrari 550 and as luck would have it (and a bit
of clever positioning by myself) I got lucky and got to drive
a Ferrari 550.
 On
getting into the red Ferrari 550 with beige cream leather
interior you fit nicely into the seat, now before setting
off and still in neutral I couldn't resist to give the accelerator
a quick dip just to see what those 485 bhp sounded like...the
answer was best answered with the huge grin I had on my face!
Anyway,
with my little rev out of the way it was time to be given
a quick briefing and introduction to my "instructor"
sat in the passenger seat next to me for my Ferrari drive.
The Ferrari I was driving was a manual and had a proper gear
box (not a flappy paddle), unlike most cars you drive where
the gear stick base is hidden under the gaitor the one on
the Ferrari actually showed where each gear change would slot
into, I guess this also makes it less likely that you will
mis-shift gears, despite it being quite nice to look at unlike
other gear boxes there was a definate movement across when
changing gears, this coupled with the clutch which was quite
heavy meant that the gear changing was definately a process
you thought about unlike how second nature it is in standard
road cars.
 It
is worth pointing out that the Prestwold Hall circuit is based
on an old airbase and the track is a purpose build 1.8 mile
long circuit that is 10 metres wide and is built over some
of the old runways, it has long straights and fast corners
with large run off areas and also a chicane to test your skills,
a perfect venue to drive a Ferrari and get fast speeds out
of it!
It
was time to set off and leave the pit area, we headed to through
the cones to the entry poitn to the track, on seeing it was
clear of other supercars we set off and punched through the
gears up the main straight!
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